Medical procedures used to treat a variety of cardiovascular maladies, such as atrial fibrillation, typically involve the use of catheters having multiple sensors, electrodes, cryogenic chambers, or other measurement and treatment components to treat the diseased area of the heart or vasculature. Typically, such minimally invasive and intravascular devices are routed through a femoral artery or other passageway into the heart under guided fluoroscopy or other imaging techniques. For example, monoplane or biplane fluoroscopic imaging can be used estimate the position of the catheter within the heart. Another method to determine position information for an inserted medical device during cardiac procedures is to measure the opposition to time-varying electric current in an electric circuit, or impedance, provided by the tissue surrounding the target tissue. This is typically achieved by placing one or more impedance sensors or electrodes on or in the patient's body and measuring the impedance or electric potential between one of the sensors or electrodes and an electrode or sensor on the catheter.
In addition to the use of imaging to monitor or guide the position of a medical device within a patient, there are often numerous other informational parameters provided, monitored, and/or recorded both with respect to both the patient and the actual medical device. For example, during a therapeutic application such as cardiac or other tissue ablation, measurements may be taken by the medical device as to tissue temperature, electrical activity of the tissue, various impedance measurements of the tissue and/or surrounding environment. In addition, parameters such as pressure, structural integrity (e.g. leak presence), diameter of a device (where balloons may be included, for example), fluid flow rate, etc. may be taken with respect to the device itself. Such device-originated information may be provided on a control panel, status monitor or other display unit or device within the treatment/operating room.
Given the often numerous, independent sources of information regarding a particular procedure presented to a physician during treatment, it may prove difficult to keep track of the various parameters regarding device positioning, operation, and the efficacy of the delivered treatment. In view of the above, it is desirable to provide systems and methods of use thereof for pairing positional information of a medical device within a patient with device-based operational or physiological information for use during a medical procedure.